I’m sorry*, but there’s no other way to describe these enrollment numbers. Which are, by the way, from a state exchange – meaning that the problems of healthcare.gov should theoretically be irrelevant to the conversation:

Enrollments have grown to 15,074, marketplace officials announced Monday.

Marketplace officials set a goal of 136,000 people covered on exchanged-based plans by the end of 2014, but so far the exchange has failed to reach even worst-case enrollment projections.

Officials’ worst-case scenarios pictured 22,215 people enrolled by Dec. 13. Their mid-range enrollment projection for that date is 40, 372.

The Democratic-controlled Coloradan state government is blaming this mess on people supposedly not having to replace their insurance now** and bad press about the national exchange. Which is easier than blaming the Democrats now running the state exchange, particularly since the head of the exchange wanted a merit raise for all her work on it. It’s certainly easier than simply admitting that hey, maybe there wasn’t all that much of a burning need for Obamacare in the first place.

But surely that’s crazy talk.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

*Yes, I am sorry. Bad numbers = people not being insured next year. What I am not is responsible for any of this.

**OK, let me explain that one. Colorado had an estimated 250K cancellations looming from Obamacare. In mid-November the President decreed (his decree is unenforceable, in my opinion) that insurance companies could offer one-time, one-year renewals until the sites all worked. Whether or not that would work (again: it won’t), it doesn’t explain why November’s enrollment numbers were awful, too.